"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

But do you know what else it begins with? A hearty breakfast.

Hi, I'm Lao Tzu. When I wake up at 3:45 every morning, the first thing I do is self-flagellate. Then I meditate for 9 hours while wearing a shirt made out of goat hair. However, following that I always have a big bowl of Kellog's Special K cereal. It gives me the energy I need to meditate for another 17 hours while denying myself all worldly pleasures, like taste. Special K is very bland.

I once said “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”.

I can't remember what I meant by that, but I almost certainly was eating Special K right before I said it.

Blog Layout

I get a lot of questions from people asking me who designed the layout of my blog, how did I choose the color scheme, what my font is, that kind of stuff.

So here is just kind of a quick rundown on the essentials:

It's pretty much just black. I think that there is a way that you can make it look different, but I forgot how to do that. There are some gray lines too. They're dotted. I like the gray because it's a nice contrast to the black. Brown also is a color.

The font is kind of tiny font. Compared to the rest of the screen it doesn't really take up that much room. I hesitate to delve too much into the specifics, but I will say this: it's white, which is a nice contrast to black.

The person that designed this specific layout was named "None". I chose it because I felt it conveyed the...actually..."None" might not have been his name.

A short story about how one day in 6th grade I was walking home and was confronted with a situation in which I had to choose between....

tying somebody's shoes, or boxing them.

That's actually the whole story.

Bird Shit

I worked today with an interesting character. He said he loved doing karaoke, that he had somewhat of a following as a karaoke god around town. I suggested that he become the lead singer of a band and he told me that he recently quit his job as the front man for a Christian rock outfit due to it tearing up his throat. I asked how singing Christian rock was any different than Ozzy, Dio and Garth Brooks, his holy (and somewhat odd) trinity of karaoke singers? Apparently his Christian rock band involved lots of screaming and yelling. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him about this. What was he screaming and yelling about? What was he doing fronting a Christian rock band after having just admitted to:

a) Beating up a dude in Reno, making him cry, then taking his money.
b) Escorting an Indian woman/drug mule from Iowa to California via Greyhound bus.
c) Acquiring legal pot via illegal methods in California
d) Punching lots of people in the head while wearing his ring shaped like a horseshoe (he loved horses) and leaving the horseshoe imprint in their forehead.
e) Washing his running shoes in the dishwasher in hopes of making them last longer (The Bible strictly forbids this)


He was also funny because he indiscriminately referred to people as dude and used the word 'flip' in place of 'fuck' a lot. I overheard him talking to the head of an apartment complex (an old lady) and his part of the conversation went like this:

"Dude, you have a flippin' SWEET apartment complex here dude. FLIP!"

His phone conversation with his girl friend:

"Hey baby, it's me. Yeah dude, get some flippin' spaghetti sauce too. Baby, dude did you wash my shoes? Flippin' sweet! Are they clean? Flip! I love you baby! Alright, bye dude."

Needless to say, this dude was the flippin' sweetest.

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How come no one ever taught me how to buy a tooth brush? I don't know what size, stiffness, bristle count or aerodynamic properties I should be looking for in a toothbrush. The method I most often use is how closely it resembles a futuristic space ship. Failing that, the more grippy rubber it's covered in, the better. Even though I've never once been brushing my teeth, lost control of the toothbrush and stabbed myself in the neck, I still view this as a requirement. I also go for the biggest, toughest bristles I can find. What if a girl walks in a sees me brushing my teeth with a small head and soft bristles? That would be the end of my dating life as I know it. Girls like guys with big, rubbery, futuristic looking toothbrushes.

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Dumb.

Remember the activity where you sneak up to someone's door, ring their doorbell, and then run and hide and wait in the bushes so you can watch them answer the door? When I was a kid I always referred to it as knicker knocking. Today I found out that is incorrect. Turns out it's the n-word knocking. Neither name makes any sense. Ding dong ditching just sounds dumb. What do I do now? I guess I'll just have to hope that this activity never comes up in any conversation I have for the rest of my life.

I also thought Sisqo performed 'The Phone Song'. Turns out it's The Thong Song. Once again, neither of these really make that much sense. Why would you write a song about thongs?

I've noticed an epidemic of people giving sideways peace signs and doing this sideways pursing of their lips thing in photos. Does a sideways peace sign mean the same thing as an upright one? Or is sideways peace just cooler?

I'm going to start flashing sideways peace signs in all of my photos, but in a really awkward fashion. Usually if using your right hand, your two fingers would point to the left. I'm going to have my fingers point to the right. It actually kind of hurts my wrist, but it'll be worth it. People will have no idea what's going on.

Is he flashing the peace sign? Or...are those scissor fingers? Why is his wrist bent like that? That looks so uncomfortable. He's making me uncomfortable.